blame the person who relied on a free anonymous shady service that made you stare at a viagra pill advertisement for 30 seconds before downloading a file that could be randomly deleted at any time without any fbi involvement as THE ONLY host for legitimate content. are you serious? whoever thought that was a good idea should be bared from using the googlz

doesn't solve the problem. what about mediafire.com , which is (according to alexa.com) even bigger than megaupload, as you can see on their site they get used (see page) by companies like intel, google, hp, etc.. you can even look at the faces of these criminal bastards http://www.mediafire.com/about/mediafire_team.php

um, use for what? as a disposable host to mirror a file, that can remove your file or go down any moment? any one of them is okey, sure.

use it to rely on it as the only host of anything you actually care about? no, it's not okey to rely on anything that doesn't provide any guarantees. does intel have a contract with mediafire? probably. do you?

for doing what they exist to do? do you doubt the entirety of the truthfulness of the allegations they made?

what do you think is the legality of the majority of content uploaded on megaupload? what about the torrents?

I like to violate copyrights as much as anyone, but I don't pretend USA or RIAA owe me those warez and rips any more than they should ignore blatant violations of the laws business interests they exist to enforce.

if you have anyone to blame, it is yourself, for not being autonomous and self-reliant

The quantity of the illegal content on there is irrelevant to the prosecutions’ case tbh. They've got them completely by the balls. For example;

On or about February 5, 2007, VAN DER KOLK sent an e-mail to ORTMANN entitled “reward payments”. Attached to the e-mail was a text file listing the following proposed reward amounts, the Megaupload.com username, and the content they uploaded:

Megaupload complied with takedown requests, just like youtube does. Unless they have proof that they were not complying with those takedown requests, then they haven't violated the law any more than Youtube.

you don't have to imagine. try reading the indictment linked below, if you're genuinely curious. there are many laws. one charge, which specifically makes 'takedown notices' irrelevant is "conspiracy", meaning their actions were evasive and their intentions were to have the least compliance possible.

this, I find totally believable, having downloaded numerous mp3 albums, warez and cracks from megaupload. just like I find youtubes proactive copyright compliance believable, which I personally witnessed being blocked from uploading a gaming movie with a snippet of some song.

youtube are conspiring to follow the law
megaupload were conspiring to violate the law.

you tell me conspiring to follow the law is not illigal, and i'm thinking, gee, you're right, this is great for youtube, since that's what they're doing! i'm sorrry, I do not understand, maybe you can tell me what you're talking about?

Unless they have evidence that they weren't complying with takedown requests (which would be a violation of copyright law), then how is it a conspiracy?

The indictment is "conspiracy to commit racketeering", "conspiracy to commit money laundering", and "conspiracy to commit copyright infringement" - all of which were probably just to excuse the arrest to begin with. These charges will not stick.

The fruit of the indictment is the actual charges of copyright infringement, which will have to prove that they weren't complying with takedown requests.

supposedly their DMCA takedown procedures didnt work well or wasnt responsive enough and they still had way too much illegal content on their servers which is why they shut them down. sucks that everyone who was using megaupload for legal purposes have lost all of their files though.

The indictment doesn't seem to reflect that - it seems like they're just trying to charge them for direct copyright infringement, and only on a few specific files. Honestly, their case looks pretty weak.

I'd be very surprised if anyone here was around at the time to remember him. He used to troll Barrysworld Ra2 (1) and (2) in the graveyard shifts with his T1-fuelled railbot, pissing off the regulars who used to duel rail-only in the 1v1 arenas. He ended up DDoS'ing the entire server array, and the b0rk.co.uk bouncer for a week because he lost to Carla who was playing on a shitty BT ISDN line at the time. We all loll'ed, hard. I dunno what happened to him after that, tho I believe he was involved in the liga.net thing around the same time.

I remember him. I played him once on barrysworld (Yeh I'm that old :<). Just about the most blatant cheater you'd ever play. .

I got so pissed off at one point that I focused all my attention and managed to kill him once. Which felt pretty good.

His actual nick was www.kimble.org. Which was some sort of huge ego website of him traveling around the world in luxury cars/jets etc squandering money he scammed of some idiots during the dot.com boom.

Needless to say he was arrested for fraud some time later.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that the personality in game isn't all that different outside the game.

know him from quake2, he played a lot of Rocket Arena ...
but at that time he had a connection advantage with his T1 compared to ISDN dial up of normal internet users ...
nevertheless he just used his chaingun,
I think he used some aimbot at the beginning, but later I he switched to natural ...
but still he was not a well rounded player and also bad in movement, but still not bad, well I guess he just played RA2 for fun =)
he also got a lot of attention in the 3D Action Liga in germany ... because of his postings and his ego ... and at some point also later when he proclaimed his his liga.net thing for his own league, that never really became a reality, players got also to know him internationally ...
he also was known for his website kimble.org, which for that time was pretty cool by means of technology for a website, lot of interactivity, etc. ... but still in germany he became known mostly for fraud ... until this thing megaupload =)
tbh. I didn't expect this guy to land such a coup like Mega Upload ... nice, nice =)

All this will do is create tit for tat between men in suits and nerds in their bedrooms:/

Bottom line is, the GVT control the internet, if hackers start taking down sites, that is no different to terrorism. Its a different type of terrorism, but the mindset is the same.

They are prepared to dominate the views of others to express their own. Which iroincally is what they see the GVT doing to them.

The only difference is, the GVT are closer to being right than wrong on piracy becuase whichever way you cut it, piracy is socially acceptable stealing and you have to be partty deluded to deny that, or you're simply happy to admit that is what you're doing and will carry on.

So, the irony is, the very people that setout to retalliate against GVT's to keep the net free will in fact be the people who make it more linear and strangle it.

Believe me, hackers do not control the net, they think they control it within the freedom they currently have, but if sites and services started getting taken down, and I really mean attacked to the point where it was fucking up life, they could change how the net worked in a very short period of time. New protocols, pressure on ISP, logged downloads which need to be approved first, sounds insane, but its likely to be a reality one day. You can see it now.

The only difference is, the GVT are closer to being right than wrong on piracy becuase whichever way you cut it, piracy is socially acceptable stealing and you have to be partty deluded to deny that, or you're simply happy to admit that is what you're doing and will carry on.

How about letting the 'proper artist' decide for himself to make it free to the public or not? piracy is stealing and artists loose revenue, how can anyone deny this? how they want to market themselves should be their decision and not some teenager who think he makes them a favor by piracy their shit.

Self-entitlement society. Little shits brought up by parents whose parents survived the war, had nothing and wanted their children to have everything they didn't. In spoiling them, you get a second generation used to getting it on a plate, who think it's their god-given right to take. Fucktards are the main cause of commercial polarization in gaming/film/music and don't even realise it. "We'd buy more, if there was more interesting stuff to buy, rather than copies of the same old shit."

What they fail to understand is investors don't bank on originality or diversification. They bank on returns. And modern production values are so high, good shit costs a lot more to make than a studio can raise while developing. Sad when a new musician or a writer can actually gain more by giving their shit away for free and living off charity sales, than they can by properly releasing their work, not to mention the knock-on effect that has for future generations of starter content producers looking for a publishing/recording deal.

There's no shortage of new artists lately. I follow the indy English ska / folk scene & those are making plenty. In fact - there's an English London based band called The King Blues, they've just started recording their latest album. Where have they gone to do this? The record company has sent them to LA. Why should we pay for this decadence?

Answer me this - why should an artist make more than the average wage? Why are they entitled to be a millionaire? That's why I'll never lose any sleep over piracy in its current form as the entertainment industry is massively bloated s

When this comes up I always have Saddle Creek Records on my mind. Indie Label, one really huge artist, rest semi-huge/small, but of good quality.
I WANT to give them my money, because they deserve it.

Saddle Creek does not support SOPA or any of the other current anti-piracy bills being debated for that matter. While we do believe that steps should be taken to protect the intellectual property of artists/authors/designers/creators, we have not come to the conclusion that the methods outlined in SOPA would be the best way of achieving this. We plan to reserve our support of any legislation until we feel there is a plan that both secures artists rights to make a living off of their work and maintains the internet’s independence and spirit of innovation.

Big companies are losing more money than the amount of money small companies are losing, so one has to ask, if they make 300 millions instead making 500 millions for a product, should we feel sorry? Moreover, the first cause of their big losses is the same which gives them big earnings, which is the aggressive publicity for their products. Can we say that they really deserve the huge amount of money they win with aggressive publicity?Is this not a subtle way to foolish the eye and the minds of the public, for them to fill their pockets?
I think that what is happening in fact through this whole process is that the market is just taking back the money that was stolen from it.

On the other hand, if big companies lose some money this is giving a bit more chances to the competition, which else would be completely suffocated.
On top of that, complains about how pure commercialism is destroying the miracle of arts are constantly winning more and more adepts.

In the past, good things took more time for the regular consumer to arrive, now with the speed of this century things are much easier to be obtained, but this comes out with a price: the decay of the quality. In order to survive, the companies have to create again quality products, and to reinvent things, to make the option of buying their products, instead taking them for free, an attractive option.

Given the technology which brings, especially by speed, the possibility of making unfair money, with aggressive publicity, "illegal" (c) practices is the response of the natural balance which is animating not only the state of businesses, but ultimately the all things in the Universe.

Do you honestly believe it's the artists that lose money via piracy? Do you see artists, mainstream or otherwise campaigning against file sharing, or rather the huge corporations who control the distribution and media? Artists will make money one way or the other, if this way of living wasn't sustainable the whole industry would have collapsed by now.

of course they do, if an artist don't do as good as the 'huge corporation' expected the artist will suffer at the end.
and what about artists that are on their own and trying to survive whiteout a huge corporation? would you pirate a small indie game that cost 5-10$?

Easy? No. And there's plenty good smaller labels with great interaction with their fans turning a profit.

But why should we support the distributors using antiquated methods, extortionate pricing & fighting to sustain a business model based on linear consumption & lack of choice.

The closure of such sites, and the very existance of bills such as SOPA / PIPA is just an old dieing industry using protectionist policies to increase profits. We should let capitalism take its course and have them innovate or die. I hope the likes of the murdoch empire die.

yeah well as long as ppl support them and don't pirate their stuff its all good.
I'm far from an expert in the game industry but how many 'big' games have they develop that way? it seems to me that it must be really hard to develop a AAA title without investors of some sort unless they save money for years and years.

but i do agree that the business model is faulty and why sopa/pipa sux, but at the same time i understand why they fight so hard.
i can't think of any other product where its acceptable to steal, and in this quantities.

maybe I'm just bias because I'm in the entertainment industry as well but i do think they should be tougher on piracy but they must also have better pricing/services and evolve.

The way i look at it is this - people who download music for the sake of downloading music wouldn't buy it anyway. No money lost in that regard - while less efficient and with actual costs attached, bootlegs have been around for far longer than digital downloads and cd-r and casettes before them were supposed to be the harbingers of doom for the music industry, nothing of the sort happened, everyone carried on. That's for the mainstream artists.

Indie/underground artists tend to have much more cerebral fanbases who are very supportive of them, and digital downloads are a very good way to discover bands that you wouldn't have otherwise heard about. I did, at least. I keep a large collection of mp3s myself, but i do buy the albums that catch my fancy (like Ufomammut's "Snailking" vinyl, which, by the way, cost me around 100 euro), as money allows. Most people i know and talk about music with share this mentality, and view digital downloads as a source of discovery and giving the music a test drive before forking out cash for it, and considering the kind of stuff i listen to (mostly underground and rather expensive to get), you bet your ass i will be careful about what i buy.

If an artist isn't really popular, or is barely starting out, i don't think many people will pirate their shit and not pay for it if they like it. If anything it makes a dent in the machine that churns out the carbon copy pop idols, and i honestly couldn't care less if Little Wayne or whatever can't afford his twentieth car because of it.

It's not an universal truth, i'm sure there were/are some legit artists that were truly hurt by piracy, but there are pros and cons to everything. If the labels and the market doesn't adapt and fit in the reality of digital downloading into their system, it's bound to happen. And maybe the artists that were truly hurt by this weren't that good and deserving of the money anyway, but that's just my subjective observation.

€: and i'm not talking out of my ass, either. I know a guy who is a producer/sound engineer at a decent studio and i get to talk to him a lot about the effects of piracy on the revenues for artists. The kind of bands and people that go record their shit over there are not that great talents and aren't immensely popular outside their little scenes, but they do good enough to keep recording new albums, support their lifestyles and get contracted for more from their labels, even though piracy is absolutely rampant in Poland.

None really, it takes MILLIONs these days, this is why games are more like sequels these days. One bad game and you're fucked unless you're owned by a huge publisher and having someone in an office dictate a game to you based on what he thinks would sell well is soul destroying.

Nothing beats the 90's for gaming anyway, you just wont get such an awesome time frame in gaming ever again :(

piracy is stealing and artists loose revenue, how can anyone deny this?

because its not that easy. imagine someone who has bought 4-5 albums and listens to the raidio mostly. now he pirates all of his music. he listens to a lot more music now, buys merch from bands he would have never heard about otherwise, visits concerts from bands he discovered. he also talks about a lot more music with friends, shares youtube videos (maybe copyrighted) with others and creates secondary revenue... at the same time its impossible to say what other services this persons might using now if it wasnt for pirating but its also impossible to say how much more money he will spend on music and bands he heard in the past because when he is grown up, has a job and buys all his music again.
piracy does not only have negative effects and its next to impossible to calculate a specific loss for an artist imho

Yeah sure, i agree that piracy can have a positive sides as well and i know that all pirated files can not be translated to loss in revenue for an artist because many ppl wouldn't have bought the stuff anyway.
but i still think that the scenario that you described don't apply to most ppl, imho most ppl will use the free alternative whiteout thinking twice and it _is_ stealing.

but that means he hasn't like 4-5 artists on the radar, more like 50-100, he won't compensate this by going to a few concerts and buy some shirts, why shouldnt he buy 4-5 albums of the newfound favourites?

i said it here before, but i think that forces musicians to be anything else but musicians. one half (or less)of a label-artist synergy or promotion dummies.that's why i'm pretty critical about the whole band story these days which only task it is to make (or present a produced)an album which they can play over and over on tour for 3~4 years. there are of course exceptions.

Are you sure you get the example? Somebody who wouldn't normally buy music dowloads some. No revenue lost. But additionally, he might produce revenue by telling people that the music he downloaded is awesome. Furthermore, he might actually go to a concert (something that's impossible to replicate with piracy). He might even want a t-shirt to show off his sorry ass. Even more cash for the artist (which he wouldn't have if not for piracy).

okay. i understood " imagine someone who has bought 4-5 albums" ~~ "now he pirates all his music" as a "drastical" change from cd buyer to downloader. so for me there is revenue lost, not for the artist he end up, but lost. i said in the other post that i have a problem with these mechanics, since when there are no albums sold at all, cause everything gets downloaded, there will be no inital feedback about how good the artist is, or a chance of progression or funding a new album. also means that he can't do concerts and merchandise without the help of social feedback like youtube comments and whatnot. i also questioned why he shouldnt buy his 4-5 albums like before on the newfound artists, as an addition or if there is no merchandise. but i got fed up talking here, so no need to think about it-. i'm having a hard time dissecting posts to squeeze the shit out of it, especially if they're not my own...

"atleast a new approach to concern with the current pirating situation"

What's new to the approach? Legal free downloads for music have been around for quite some while. The only difference here is that he gives his 'solution' the name 'MegaKey' and claims that artists will get 90 percent of some vaguely specified earnings.
Doesn't sound like a scam at all, right?

"Then mark your irony next time. ;)"
no, it still tricks people who don't know me, to show me their whole reddit information circle, or something similar, it also states that i'm dumb, but vice versa, that you're dumb if you don't get it

"What's new to the approach?"
sites like bandcamp, soundcloud etc. don't do this, they just give the artist the opportunity to directly get access to their prefered way of distribution.
this approach is like giving the opportunity to download ALL RELEASES for nothing, while the artists gets the money out of the global funding of the whole site thorugh various ways. if it would work, i can't say
it's just the opposite approach to the shutting down mentality of the sopa/acta or w/e

and even if it's 50% it would still be better than nothing, the "lets find some new bands"mentality won't be changed

"I don't know who you are, sorry."
then don't talk to me like you would

no, it still tricks people who don't know me, to show me their whole reddit information circle, or something similar, it also states that i'm dumb, but vice versa, that you're dumb if you don't get it

Is this supposed to make any sense?

this approach is like giving the opportunity to download ALL RELEASES for nothing, while the artists gets the money out of the global funding of the whole site thorugh various ways.

I know. For example, the label denovali already gives free downloads of all the records for some of its artists. I'm sure there are more examples.
But what made you think that this Kim Schmitz guy had figured out a way of doing this in a large scale without ripping off the artists?

if it would work, i can't say it's just the opposite approach to the shutting down mentality of the sopa/acta or w/e

You can't say?
Anyway, of course it sounds like a good idea on paper. Making profit with millions of free downloads and paying it to the artists.
But how do you know it's 'actually a nice bussiness model' when it's coming from a known scammer?

the "lets find some new bands"mentality won't be changed

Again, I don't have a clue what you're trying to say.

then don't talk to me like you would

I don't. I just read your post and it sounded stupid so I commented on it sarcastically.
I still don't see how this 'nice bussiness model' by a criminal could lead to any positive outcomes, but feel free to point them out.

"this approach is like giving the opportunity to download ALL RELEASES for nothing, while the artists gets the money out of the global funding of the whole site thorugh various ways."

they have an mp3 shop, that's all i spot on their site.good label.
i guess the thing you're talking about is a netlabel-like release under the creative common license? but that would be something totally different and it's also based on a label.

"Is this supposed to make any sense?"
won't help you anymore.

not sure where i talk about kim schmitz, i'm talking about possibilities

"But how do you know it's 'actually a nice bussiness model' when it's coming from a known scammer?"

i would even think about it if it would come from scowl

"the "lets find some new bands"mentality won't be changed
Again, I don't have a clue what you're trying to say."

think about it. sites like mediafire.com. what if they would use all their capacities to offer a service like this. they would get a huuge increase of income through advertisement etc.. which would be used to pay the artists

I didn't say that the idea can't be taken serious ('it sounds good on paper'm, remember?), I'm just saying that he's obviously not the kind of guy who will suddenly run a legal bussiness which is a profit to everyone.

alright, and i'm not sure why you still (and i should) talk about him, i'm not interested in judging him in a public environment or discussion based on wikipedia bios or biased articles (won't doubt there are facts to acknoweledge).
if you really want to know my oppinion, then i can say that besides his criminal capabilities he seems to be an interesting person which seems to transcent the internetattitude to reality with all it's consequences (extreme bragging, crimes, general manic or egocentric behavior, naive or unprejudiced and risky actions, no "law-consciousness" etc..). but this is just a vague theory.

but i was just interested (as you can track back) to think about the approach or alternative ideas in general, which theoretical can be executed by any organisation, company, country. which is: free cultural experience for the consumer, BUT at the same time a compensation and a higher value perception in favor of artists.

if you can't see what i'm interested in, please don't force me to head to a discussion i don't want to be part of.

but i was just interested (as you can track back) to think about the approach or alternative ideas in general, which theoretical can be executed by any organisation, company, country. which is: free cultural experience for the consumer, BUT at the same time a compensation and a higher value perception in favor of artists.

Nope, you didn't say you'd like to think about it. You said that it was a nice bussiness model and a new approach.

I don't think it's either.

1) I don't think it's new. As I pointed out above, there are already plenty of artists who distribute their music for free, knowing that they'll eventually get a compensation for it one way or the other.
Besides, the notion of artists living off advertisement revenue is one of the worst possible types of compensation I can think of.

2) I don't think the "MegaKey" model would be working nicely. I judge this to be pretty obvious, considering it's been put forward by a criminal.
Yes, it's a nice idea in theory, but the theory isn't new, so how exactly is it noteworthy in any way?

... what else would i do than thinking about the idea, if there is no way it could happen now, since his whole armada was sent to some unknown galaxies with no chance of a comeback.

your whole point in talking to me was to tell me that my "statement" was stupid anyway(hey, fine)

"there are already plenty of artists who distribute their music for free"

i'm one of them. just pack some mp3s on your webpage doesn't mean it's an release. afaik the only way to release it for free is with help of the creative common license (mostly with a donation option), so it gets listed etc...

this has nothing to do with releasing everything for free and getting the money like in this case of the download-portal. (harsh example: try to get some beatles cd for free)

clearification: new, as in hasnt been established or i havent read anything about it.

to your second point:
"considered it's been put forward for a criminal"- i don't care, since nothing happened at all, yet and also wouldn't by a "criminal"

"new?"-, cant disagree more

e: "Besides, the notion of artists living off advertisement revenue is one of the worst possible types of compensation I can think of."

that should deserve more than a "besides", since it's the 3rd statement you're making, next to the "criminal"- and "nothingnew"-issue

some artists rely on the donation revenue, that's actually far worse, and as stated in some other post: better than nothing

I assume if that idea of releasing everything for free on one big site is to be established, the artists should be paid proportionately to the amount of clicks/downloads they bring in.
Or would you pay everyone the same amount, regardless of whether anyone downloads it?

Paying proportionately leads to the following result: An artist with few but devoted fans would definitely end up getting less money than artists who advertise their music to the masses.
What's the improvement in that?

Currently, donation-based services like kickstarter already offer what the few-but-devoted-fans-artists need. Case in point.
I don't see how a 'one service for all artists' kind of approach would be any better than the plethora of different possibilities available to different artists atm.

I really wonder what kind of artist -- currently struggling to get any money for his art -- would benefit from it. If you have figured it out, please elaborate.

by the way you should know that i'm not interested to live off releasing music, neither do i want to create a service like that.

the improvement would of course be the amount of money both (but more so the unknown band/artist) gain.
as i said it before, most people use tools like soulseek to grub for artists they do not know and are curious about. with a service like this, the artists would get paid even for just getting checked out.

i heard of kickstarter and like the idea for everything that can't be copied as easy as music, basicly everything physical.
since it's just a damn pledge the people make, there is actually no need to donate at the end, especially they can grab it for free afterwards.(do you know any statistics about that issue?)

as i said before :( i'm also curious about other ideas popping up, which could work with the filesharing mentality in general and a compromise between audience and artist.

with a service like this, the artists would get paid even for just getting checked out.

Yeah, but the payment can be really little and quite possibly less than what they would get using a different system.

The idea of having one big site to browse and check out millions of bands and download their stuff for free, while the artists actually get paid better than when they would do things on their own.... just sounds almost too good to be true.

since it's just a damn pledge the people make, there is actually no need to donate at the end, especially they can grab it for free afterwards.(do you know any statistics about that issue?)

It's called a pledge because you only donate if the funding goal is reached. If it's reached, you *do* have to donate the money you pledged (="fest zugesagt").

"Yeah, but the payment can be really little and quite possibly less than what they would get using a different system."

i would say that depends on the overall usage of the whole service, it's still "paid proportionately" but the amount wouldnt be fixed, it would be proportionately aswell. (tell me if i'm doing a logical mistake here)

" just sounds almost too good to be true."
well, it's all just a guessing game, but it depends all on the major labels, since noone would need to check their artists out, you could see it as a gratification or substitute for advertisement in favor of the upcoming artists (or artist that just don't want to get used and thrown away by majors).
remember, it doesnt have to rely on advertisement as revenue on its own, there could be some paid premium options aswell (lossless, information, access to several features)

"If it's reached, you *do* have to donate the money you pledged"
really sure about a bonding and immediately payment?

megaupload et. al are making money w/ people hosting illegal content. That is what they always did, right? I mean, when did I ever use megaupload or others to host files that are rightfully mine? Like maybe 2 out of 10 times. The rest was wares and other shit.

I am not saying everyone does that but merely undermining the fact that those sites are full of illegal content and that is what makes them thrive - and not the legal content.

services that provide public filesharing should be abolished imho,
or only set a maxlimit to 10 downloads or so ...
it's quite obvious especially younger people have the everything is free mentality right now ... why pay for something, if you can have it for free ... the problem with that is that there are many people working hard to create these pieces of art and need to do a living from it ... if you can't afford a film, don't watch it, it's easy, people did the same 10-20 years ago ... just pay for the quality films you want to see ... this whole download generation almost renders someboy dumb who pays for film/music ...
and it's quite obvious these internetacts are not done to take freedom of people, but to stop the whole piracy thing that is getting now too way too big ...
the problem right now is that they are just attacking megaupload, while rapidshare and the likes are still alive ... this is not o.k....
they should close these services alltogether down ...

EDIT: btw, thanks to the tablet/eBookreader revolution book authors soon will also suffer from piracy, so far it was unconvenient to read them on a monitor ... but the quality of the eBook-Readers getting better and better, it's just a question of time when the real books will be replaced ...